Consumers are thinking twice about mushrooms despite assurances about their safety

The story that gripped the world about a fatal mushroom lunch has had extraordinary impacts not just on those involved.

It is “actually impossible” for a death cap mushroom to end up in the button mushroom supermarket supply chain.

That’s the message from the chair of the Australian Mushroom Growers Association Georgia Beattie amid reports that mushroom sales have fallen sharply on the back of the rural Victorian lunch that killed three diners.

Ms Beattie, who is also CEO of Bulla Park, Australia’s largest organic mushroom farm, told the ABC’s Radio National that commercial button mushroom farms are not set up to grow the death cap mushroom suspected of causing the deaths of three people in Victoria last month.

“This death cap mushroom is a particular species that is what we call symbiotic and it needs a tree to grow on,” she said.

Ms Beattie said supermarkets have told mushroom farmers that sales have fallen by up to 10 per cent in the past few weeks, as consumers avoid the vegetable over fears of supply chain contamination.

Chair of the Australian Mushroom Growers Association and CEO of Bulla Park, Georgia Beattie said supermarket mushrooms were not to blame for the deaths. Picture: Zoe Phillips.

Three people died from suspected death cap mushroom poisoning after a family lunch gone wrong in the small Victorian town of Korumburra in late July.

The host of the fatal lunch, Erin Patterson, told police she used a mixture of button mushrooms from a major supermarket and dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer in the beef Wellington suspected to be the cause of the deaths.

But a family friend told The Daily Mail that Ms Patterson was an experienced forager who was known to pick wild mushrooms around the Gippsland region.

“The Patterson family [including Erin and Simon] would pick mushrooms each year when they were in season,” the friend said.

“It’s very common for people to go mushroom picking around that area.”

Police investigations into the deaths are continuing but no charges have been laid and Ms Patterson denies any wrongdoing.

Erin Patterson cooked the fatal lunch but denies any wrongdoing.

Gail and Don Patterson, Ms Patterson’s former in-laws, and Heather Wilkinson, Gail’s sister, died following the lunch, while Gail’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, remains in hospital.

Simon Patterson, Erin’s estranged ex-husband, was also supposed to also be at the meal but pulled out.

According to police, they are investigating Ms Patterson because she was the only adult among five who ate the meal that did not either die or suffer severe illness after ingesting the deadly mushrooms.

Button mushroom sales are falling after the mysterious deaths. Picture: Zoe Phillips.

Police have also previously stressed that her involvement in the deaths may be completely innocent.

Ms Beattie said the sales drop is “not to a point where it’s of concern”, but that mushroom farmers are “keeping an eye” on falling sales.

“We’ve got world-leading standards to produce food in Australia, so consumers can have confidence in that,” she said.

“Mushrooms are caught up in the wrong crowd at the moment.”